VOCATIONAL FACTORS IN A DISABILITY CLAIM

"Vocational factors" in a Social Security disability claim refer to the claimant's age, education and work experience.


Theoretically, an individual can qualify for Social Security disability in two ways:


(1)  by meeting one of the Listings (in 404, Subpart P, Appendix I), OR


(2)  by use of the "residual function capacity" (RFC) to determine whether the individual can perform any of his or her past relevant work.  (Past relevant work is work performed during the past 15 years at substantial gainful activity levels).


If Social Security determines that you cannot do your past relevant work, it must use the same RFC to determine if you can perform any other work.  Along with the RFC, the vocational factors (age, education and work experience) must be considered.


Let's take the example of a 58 year-old person with a 7th grade education.  His residual functional capacity (RFC) restricts him to sedentary work.  All of his previous work experience has been as an unskilled laborer in the construction trades. Here are the factors and conclusions that Social Security must consider:

  1. His RFC will not permit him do his previous work.
  2. Since he has no skilled work experience, a limited education, and is in advanced age, Social Security should find that he cannot do any other work and find him disabled using Rule 201.01 (CFR 404, Subpart B, Appendix II, Table No. 1) as a guideline.
The result could be quite different, however, if the vocational factors were changed.  If this had been a younger individual (under age 44), with a high school education and a history of skilled or semi-skilled work, with the same medical evidence, he would likely have been found "not disabled."

So a disability claim must combine both medical evidence and vocational evidence to reach a conclusion.  That's why judges nearly always call a vocational expert to testify at disability hearings.  These vocational witnesses must be taken seriously because their testimony can cinch a case or sink it, depending on what they say.  I've learned to take a good look at the vocational factors of a claim - not just the medical evidence.

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